NEW FEATURE DESIGN - ZENOBĒ
PROCESS AUTOMATION, PRODUCT STRATEGY, UX & UI DESIGN
2024
INTRODUCTION
Accelerating the Shift to Clean Fleets
Zenobē is a UK leader in battery storage and fleet electrification, helping operators transition from diesel to clean energy.
Its digital platform, built with Supercharge, manages complex battery systems and bus depot operations. But onboarding a new site required manual uploads by Supercharge specialists, creating delays and errors before Zenobē’s team could get started.
I designed Zenobē’s Site Management System, replacing manual database uploads with an integrated flow that reduced setup time by 40% and introduced a super user role, enabling site teams to manage sites more independently.
YEAR
2024
TIMELINE
4 WEEKS
ROLE
PRODUCT DESIGNER
CONTRIBUTORS
PRODUCT SPECIALIST
FIELD EXPERTS
FE & BE ENGINEERING LEAD
PROBLEM
Where Things Slow Down
During discovery sessions, I interviewed Zenobē’s operations leads, depot managers and our in‑house product specialists. A typical site setup involved:
Information Hand‑off
Zenobē’s commercial team captured site details and emailed them to a Supercharge product specialist.
Manual Configuration
A specialist uploaded CSV files or executed database scripts; if any parameter was wrong, they looped back with Zenobē.
Verification & Training
After the product manager approved the configuration, Zenobē’s operations team added vehicles and started monitoring, often requiring training.
The friction wasn’t just in the number of steps. Depot managers sometimes waited days to see their site appear in the system, and the specialists were a bottleneck.
PROCESS
Groundwork for Change
To reimagine this workflow, I set out to understand the pain points in depth, explore how others solved similar challenges, and collaborate closely with engineers to design a solution that would work within the platform’s technical realities.
#1
Mapping the Existing Process with Stakeholders
I spoke with Zenobē operations, site managers, and Supercharge product specialists to capture the full end-to-end flow.
Together, we mapped where bottlenecks occurred: manual file uploads, inconsistent data formats, and the overhead of training new users. This gave us a shared view of the frictions holding the process back.
#2
Benchmarking Similar SaaS Products
I reviewed onboarding and configuration flows in comparable SaaS platforms to see how they balanced complexity with usability.
This helped identify best practices for guiding users through multi-step setups while keeping flexibility for different use cases.
#3
Workshops with Backend and Frontend Engineers
To ensure feasibility, I held workshops with engineers to align on system constraints and data model requirements. A key insight was that the platform supports two distinct site types:
Vehicle sites – full fleet and infrastructure management (chargers, batteries, telematics)
Telematics-only sites – vehicle data only, without charging or battery orchestration
I genuinely enjoyed these technical brainstorming sessions. As intimidating as it first felt to dive into backend logic, it was also fascinating to learn how the system worked under the hood. 🤩
SPARK
Giving Power Back to User
While prototyping the site-creation flow, we uncovered a related bottleneck: core tasks like depot setup and adding Zenobē users were only possible through Supercharge administrators.
To reduce this dependency, we redefined and segmented existing roles more clearly. Zenobē admins can now configure depots and add users directly, while Site Admins have more flexibility to customise depot setup within defined technical rules.
SOLUTION
Guided Site Creation
To make site creation intuitive and error-proof, we designed a guided process that balances flexibility with control. Every step was built to reduce user effort, prevent mistakes, and make progress feel clear and recoverable. Here’s how the flow works and why these details matter:
Select Site Type
Why it matters: The site type shapes the entire setup journey. Asking this first prevents confusion and avoids showing irrelevant steps.
How we designed it: Users choose site type up front, and the flow adapts to show only the steps that matter for that choice.
Choose Creation Mode
Why it matters: Not every user will want to create a site from scratch — some may already have test configurations.
How we designed it: Users can either create manually or upload a configuration file exported from a test environment, giving flexibility and saving time for advanced users.
Progress Indicator
Why it matters: With a multi-step process, users need clarity on where they are, what’s left, and how changes ripple through the flow.
How we designed it:
Steppers are fully clickable, allowing users to move back easily.
If changes in an earlier step affect later steps, those affected steps are greyed out and must be revisited.
This ensures dependencies stay valid while keeping unaffected steps intact.
Validation
Why it matters: Users need immediate feedback to avoid wasted effort, but also backend accuracy to ensure data integrity.
How we designed it:
Frontend validation runs instantly wherever possible.
Backend validation runs when moving forward.
Users cannot continue with invalid or missing mandatory inputs, but they can move back and fix later. Errors are highlighted clearly in red to reduce ambiguity.
Drafts & Autosave
Why it matters: Site creation is a lengthy process, and losing progress would be frustrating and costly.
How we designed it:
Autosave starts from step 1 and is triggered by both clicks (immediately) and typing (on blur or after 3s).
Invalid inputs are still saved, so users never lose work, though they can’t progress without fixing errors.
Drafts reopen at the latest saved step, and exiting triggers an editing history entry with a note prompt. This gives users a reliable, recoverable record of changes.
IMPACT
After releasing the Site Management System, the time to set up a new site dropped from over a week to just a few days (a 40 % reduction).
Zenobē operators appreciated the transparency of seeing their sites appear instantly.
Depot managers used the new Site Manager role to invite drivers and engineers without waiting for central admin, increasing adoption.
The Supercharge product team reduced ad‑hoc support work, freeing up bandwidth for other features.
This project demonstrated the value of combining service design with UI/UX. By understanding the ecosystem: hardware, software and people, I was able to streamline operations while respecting technical constraints. Empowering users through thoughtful role design not only reduced friction but also fostered ownership.